The present invention relates to a control panel for Christmas lights and more particularly pertains to allowing lights to be turned on and off at selected times and shutting off the lights in the event of a shortage or overload.
Christmas light controllers and its circuit commonly have a power plug on one end and controlled light sets on the other end, or the power plug and the controlled light sets are arranged on the same side of the controller. The control circuit of Christmas light controller consists of a rectifier, a current-limiter, a voltage regulator, an oscillator, a selector switch, a driver, and an integrated circuit; in which the integrated circuit controls its own internal codes in accordance with the action of the selector switch to govern a driver producing the light variation of an outside light set.
The present invention seeks to provide a control panel and light panels that will automatically turn Christmas light on and off at predetermined times while preventing a shortage or an overload.
The use of control devices for lighting arrangements is known in the prior art. More specifically, control devices for lighting arrangements heretofore devised and utilized for the purpose of energizing a plurality of lights are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,147 to Wu discloses a Christmas light controller, with a current limiter and a voltage regulator incorporated therein, having the capability of cycling the power down. U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,587 to Gray discloses a programmable lighting control system for Christmas lighting applications. U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,277 to Weiner discloses a controller for sequentially energizing Christmas light strings. U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,860 to Yonick discloses an additional Christmas light control apparatus and is provided for general interest in the art.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objective and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a control panel for Christmas lights for allowing lights to be turned on and off at selected times and shutting off the lights in the event of a shortage or overload.
In this respect, the control panel for Christmas lights according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of allowing lights to be turned on and off at selected times and shutting off the lights in the event of a shortage or overload.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for new and improved control panel for Christmas lights which can be used for allowing lights to be turned on and off at selected times and shutting off the lights in the event of a shortage or overload. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.